> The instrument remained in the French court until the French Revolution, after which the basso fell out of favor and the “King” was “drastically reduced in size” through an alteration process that “stood at the forefront of musical instrument development during the last quarter of the 18th century
I had to process that sentence a couple of times to understand that the process the author was talking about wasn't the guillotine.
That is one beautiful instrument. What does the front look like?
And I know we can't hear it in its "original glory" anymore, but is the sample only like 10 seconds long because it's proprietary, or is the cello too delicate to play a full number on, or...?
Old string instruments generally remain playable[1] so it most probably wouldn’t be too delicate to play. However most old Amati and Stradivarius instruments will have had a refit during the Romantic period to play on metal strings. This massively increases the string tension compared to the gut strings that would have been used in the original design. This refit often involves a new bridge, soundpost and nut[2] and (if it happened) would have moved the position of the soundpost relative to the bridge. So you’d want to undo all that to hear it in its original state. You’d also want to remove the end pin and use a historically accurate bow as cello players used to play by sort of cradling the cello in their legs rather than having it on a pin and the bow changed shape.
Gut strings have more resonance and a much better sound (in my opinion) at the expense of being less loud and much harder to keep consistently in tune. The romantic movement led to larger forces in the orchestra and more brass, which meant strings had to be louder and in greater numbers to get a balanced sound, and obviously being able to stay in tune over the course of the (longer and longer) pieces of music was convenient!
Here’s an example of a historically-informed performance of the Bach cello suite no 1 in G so you get an idea what the gut strings and bow sound like. https://youtu.be/cGnZHIY_hoQ?si=J1GMF4Yg2h4dQ6-A
Source: Wife is an “early musician” albeit not a string player and teaches at a couple of big conservertoires in London. I was a professional bass player (not early music, Jazz and similar) so know about string set up from that. Have lots of early musician friends.
[1] Unlike old wind instruments (recorders etc) where the players’ breath causes the instrument to degrade so they literally become unplayable over time. That is why even though we have renaissance recorders for example, they are in museums and modern reproductions made by copying their measurements etc play better than the originals. That’s not true of old string instruments. There are 16th century string instruments out there being played all the time.
[2] That’s not as radical as it sounds. The soundpost plays a crucial role in the sound production of the instrument as it transmits the resonance of the strings into the body of the instrument but it’s basically just a piece of dowling rod. The nut and bridge would conventionally be replaced whenever you put a new fingerboard on, which happens a lot as you wear them out.
Replying to myself to add two further things which I should have mentioned before. Firstly I looked at the photos and that instrument is on gut. You can see it clearly here[1]. So you may have found it interesting idk but you can ignore everything I said about setup.
Secondly one thing that makes this instrument so special is that as rare and precious as original Amati and Stradivarius violins are, original cellos and basses are rarer. There are two reasons for this:
1) Because there are fewer cellos and basses in the orchestra than there are violins and violas, and fewer cello concertos etc than violin concertos for high-end virtuosos to perform, the elite makers made far fewer of these instruments originally. That goes double for an instrument like this that was literally made for a king. All of these instruments have a distinguished history but that's on another level.
2) Secondly, it's much easier for a large instrument to be damaged. Let alone just the day to day knocks etc that happen when you have a massive instrument cluttering up your house, given the history of wars etc in Europe since the 16th century it's practically a miracle that any of these instruments survived intact.
A look at the "King" Cello, crafted by Andrea Amati around 1560 for King Charles IX of France, which remains playable today at the National Music Museum.
Is the mystique around Stradivarius instruments subjectively put on a pedestal like wine tasting or audiophiles or can someone actually tell the difference in a blind test?
Stradivarius instruments deserve being put on a pedestal for historical reasons. Stradivari basically defined the sound of the modern violin, using flatter arching and f holes with smaller hole areas than the Amatis, which resulted in a significantly more powerful instrument that was better suited to playing in a concert hall (vs. the chamber music of earlier times). Stradivarius violins are also noted for their extremely fine craftsmanship and attention to detail. The majority of modern violins are still modeled after Stradivarius examples (with a probably smaller number modeled after del Gesu instruments and some other makers). Most top soloists play on (heavily modified) Strads, and so it seems pretty clear that, at the very least, Strads are not holding any soloists back - and that is not the case for Amati instruments, for example, which despite being coveted for their age and history just don't have the same power and sound projection as Strads.
But, as other comments have said, there have been at this point a good slew of blind tests, and Strads are hardly ever recognized better than chance when compared to modern instruments, even when played by experts and judged by experts. People have been studying and modeling after Strads for so long it would be pretty shocking if we couldn't make instruments that sounded as good. In my mind that doesn't make Strads any less valuable - an original Picasso is still valued so highly because it was created by the master that invented Cubism, but that doesn't mean that a modern painter couldn't create a Cubist painting that was "just as good", objectively.
> But, as other comments have said, there have been at this point a good slew of blind tests, and Strads are hardly ever recognized better than chance when compared to modern instruments, even when played by experts and judged by experts.
Others are also commenting about audiophiles. But there's a big difference: an audiophile's sentiment about their gold wires doesn't change the sound coming out of the speakers for the rest of the listening audience. On the other hand, a violinist's sentiment typically does.
Also, just to be clear-- are you saying there are blind tests where an expert tried playing multiple violins and couldn't guess better than chance which one was the Strad?
Yeah I completely understand the value of the Stradivarius as a work of art. My question was more functional and it seems like the vast majority of the value comes from it being art and not from being functionally better than something we can make today.
Only a handful of controlled tests have been conducted and listeners failed to identify or prefer the Strads. None of the experiments were very big so there might be a perceptible difference that can be detected with more statistical power. Blinding the eyes and noses of top level musicians might bias the results.
It is very difficult to obtain access to the instruments. The general sentiment from musicians and collectors seems to be that they don't want a bunch of scientists to come into their world and tell them that what they are or are not hearing or they just don't understand why controlled tests are required.
The general sentiment from musicians and collectors seems to be that they don't want a bunch of scientists to come into their world and tell them that what they are or are not hearing or they just don't understand why controlled tests are required.
There seems to be the same sentiment from audiophiles against testing their ridiculously overpriced placebos, although sometimes it does happen and the results are exactly as you'd expect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015987
Furthermore, there are many intangible qualities of the way an instrument resonates and feels while playing that often contributes more to the better playing than the raw sound itself. It’s strange to say but instruments have a sort of soul and that can inspire musicians which leads to better sound
You’re going to run into a bunch of trouble using “soul” for anything. It serves a purpose but that’s usually either laziness, inability to measure some physical quality or a placebo effect. Generally pointing that out will end up putting someone in the pedant bucket but I’m risking it.
I understand what you're getting at, and I can appreciate it, but it's also kind of bullshit. You say "instruments have a sort of soul and that can inspire musicians which leads to better sound" - well, if that's the case, then people should be able to hear the difference in that sound in blind tests, which so far they basically haven't.
There have been both. Here is a famous example from around 1977 I believe that was broadcast on the BBC (I knew of this example but this is the first time I actually found a recording of the broadcast): https://www.baroquemusic.org/violincomparison.html . The violinist playing is Manoug Parikian, who presumably knew which instrument was which, and neither Isaac Stern nor Pinchas Zukerman (both world class soloists) nor Charles Beare (a famous luthier described as "the most esteemed authenticator in the world" by the NYTimes) could identify which violin was which.
A bit of engineering and a lot of myth and degradation due to time.
The engineering seems to be a combination of genuine construction advances and the usage of wood that was abnormally dense due to having been grown during a big drought.
This, of course, contributed to the "myths" around the Strads with the varnishes, techniques, etc. supposedly being "The Thing(tm)" that made Strads so much better.
Finally, wood degrades with time--period. It doesn't matter how much you try to preserve it, it's just fact. The current Strads are either "Ship of Theseus" type violins, or they are heavily degraded.
At this point, modern luthiers create better instruments than even a Strad in its prime. They have access to better woods, better glues and finishes, better tools and training, better analyzers and better players than anyone in the time of Stradivarius.
When played as close to double blind as is possible, the data comes back with modern players preferring modern violins made by modern luthiers over the old Strads.
I had to process that sentence a couple of times to understand that the process the author was talking about wasn't the guillotine.
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